Books by Film Designers

I've had a query from a reader and as my own answer is a little long, but also not entirely adequate I thought I'd post it here in case anyone has anything to add, or in case it was of interest to other people.

Matt, I know that many of the better films through the years have hired great designers who did their research and created outstanding and accurate fashions, props and sets for their films. What I need are photos that will provide me with some details. It’s my hope you may have the names of some books from both American and foreign publishers. An added hope is maybe some of the designers actually wrote some of these books. Thanks.

My immediate thought was of Henry S. Noerdlinger's book "Moses and Egypt" (pictured above) which describes itself as "The Documentation to the Motion Picture The Ten Commandments". It was published in 1956 by University of Southern California Press as an accompaniment to Cecil B. DeMille's second pass at The Ten Commandments. Noerdlinger was the official researcher for the film and goes to great depth in his research although sadly DeMille then left most of it out in the final work.

Whilst I'm sure there are other such books from the period, I personally don't know them. I have various books released as movie tie ins from Bible films, but most of these are more glossy books of publicity stills rather than works related to the design. It's certainly possible that some of these are still around, but I suspect it's something that wasn't popular at the time.

The other book in the above photo is more in line with what is desired, and it, too, is from a Moses film, 1998's The Prince of Egypt. It styles itself as a "Movie Scrapbook" and the front cover explains that it is "An in-depth look behind the scenes". Inside it takes various looks behind the scenes, including one called "Creating the Design". From memory similar books have been released for other more recent Bible films, though if they have I don't think I have any.

Actually though these things are far more likely to pop up as extra features on the DVD/Blu-ray discs. Special editions of most of the major Bible films have been made, and are often full of this sort of information - The Passion of the Christ for example is packed with this extra features of this sort, as also is The Miracle Maker. These obviously aren't quite still photos but if someone is just trying to get a general impression then film is as good as a book, and still pictures can be achieved from screen grabs on your PC/laptop. If you don't have any software that does this, then I'd recommend VLC which is open source (and therefore free), widely used, and well thought of.

If anyone has anything to add, please do chip in in the comments below. I know I've been a bit slow recently in moderating comments, but I'll keep a special watch out over the next few weeks.